The April 27 tornadoes that leveled entire buildings and claimed 240 lives in Alabama are still fresh in the memories of those communities struggling to move forward.

“It’s been five and a half months, but you drive up there and it looks like it was last week,” said Alex Sokol, one of three founders of Alabama Forever, a nonprofit created to help the storm victims. “You get to Tuscaloosa, and you can still see the direct path – entire streets and neighborhoods gone. It’s been cleaned up, but rebuilding is minimal, at best.”

The grassroots effort continued in the months after the deadly twisters, trying to help small towns that were already struggling in a sagging economy through the aftermath, which has been described as a complex maze of red tape, insurance claims and a lot of waiting according to Sokol and others.

“Everyone is looking for answers and nobody really seems to have them,” he said. “I can’t imagine for residents how frustrating that may be. Say they pick a spot to rebuild, it could be nine months to a year before it’s built, and is there funding to rebuild? If there’s funding, then they have to wait for that.”

In the small community of Cordova, two banks, two pharmacies and the town’s only grocery store, the decades-old Piggly Wiggly, are among the many structural casualties. The grocery store site is in a flood plain, so the owners cannot rebuild there, Sokol said.

“If you want to rebuild elsewhere, you’ve got to buy this land from whomever,” he said. “Things like that are happening and creating a ripple effect where it should be easy. The more people who get involved, the harder it is. What stinks is they have to drive 20 minutes now to get a meal for their families.”

With 41 of the state’s 67 counties declared disaster areas, property damage mounted into millions of dollars. It is also estimated the disasters will cost Alabama between 5,600 and 13,200 jobs and from $4.4 million to $10.2 million in sales tax collections, according to a study by the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

Tuscaloosa – listed in 2009 as one of “50 Best Places to Launch a Small Business” by Fortune Small Business – suffered possibly the worst of the damage, the University of Alabama study reported, after being struck by an EF4 tornado that cut a path 6 miles long and a half-mile wide through the city.

Tuscaloosa is the most “take-your-breath-away” disaster visually, Sokol agreed, “but disaster is disaster. There’s no level of ‘This is worse than this.’ Everyone’s life was changed and altered horribly.’

“The thing about tornadoes is, while hurricanes are larger scale disasters, you know they’re coming and you can prepare for them. You can’t with tornadoes,” said Matt Little, senior vice president at Birmingham-based insurance company McGriff Seibels & Williams Inc. “You can’t track its path very well.”

When one hits, Little said it can be a total loss for a business so the best option is to have a post-emergency action plan.

“If there is a hole in the roof, they can be prepared to deal with that and minimize further damage from rain,” he said. “But they should also have a plan to get their business back up and running as quickly as they can.”

Because of the economy, Little said, some clients are taking proceeds from the insurance and putting into locations elsewhere or shipping jobs overseas.

“When they don’t rebuild, there’s jobs lost there,” he said.

However, Little said the disaster boosted construction, especially in Birmingham.

“Construction is a big driver of the economy here, and was struggling, but the fact is the tornadoes have created some temporary relief for jobs there – I’m not sure about the long-term, though.”

UA’s study predicts cleanup, assistance and rebuilding will pump $2.6 billion into the state economy in 2011, with the state spending about $80 million to $100 million for cleanup. Funds will mainly come from federal sources and insurance claim payments.

Little expects his company to continue sorting through claims issues for some time.

“It’s a case-by-case situation,” he said. “We’ve seen everything from $50,000 on a convenience store to over $10 million for building losses.”

And just when the aftermath seemed complicated enough, legal issues cropped up.

Richard Smith, partner with Birmingham-based law firm Christian & Small LLP, said the upswing in claims for damage and business interruption likely will lead to a substantial number of contract and bad faith claims against various insurance companies and brokers.

“We are seeing a number of insureds asking for advice on how to prepare their proofs of loss for those claims, as many of them have never had total losses of buildings and business operations,” Smith said.

According to Alabama Forever’s Sokol, it remains to be seen how long it will take before substantial rebuilding can begin.

“We’re fighting to do that, but to say it would take two or three years – who knows?” he said

“As corny as that sounds,” Sokol said. “There are so many mixed messages. Everyone is just looking for leadership. These people lived in quiet communities, with mayors who had day jobs in addition to being mayor. Everything was fine and dandy April 26, and the next day, life is turned upside down.”